


Useful

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Praying That It'll Be You [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “You need my help,” Hartley says. Perhaps he should say ‘I could help you,’ but he needs to be needed. If no one needs him, if he’s expendable…he doesn’t want to consider it.
Series: Praying That It'll Be You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562548
Comments: 3
Kudos: 91





	Useful

“You need my help,” Hartley says. Perhaps he should say ‘I could help you,’ but he needs to be needed. If no one needs him, if he’s expendable…he doesn’t want to consider it. 

Cisco scoffs. He’s making a concerted effort to sound derisive, but he’s never been very good at it. “Uh, nope. You’re a supervillain, and a jerk, and I don’t need help from supervillain jerks.”

Hartley raises an eyebrow. “What exactly have I done that warrants being called villainous? In case you’ve forgotten, _I_ was the one who saved you from that dementor.”

“It’s called a Time Wraith,” Cisco pronounces proudly. He always did enjoy knowing more than Hartley. His next, muttered sentence is probably not intended for Hartley’s ears. “Which is a cool name that I didn’t give, and I’m kinda pissed about that.” 

“Time Wraith, then.” Hartley presses his palms flat against the cell door. “It’s vulnerable to sound. Everything is. And in case you haven’t noticed, that’s my area of expertise. Ergo, you need my help.”

“Again, ‘ergo’ nothing.” Cisco points a pen at him. “You tried to kill Dr. Wells. That’s very super-villainous, and it doesn’t exactly make me want to let you out of that cell so you can try again.”

Hartley hisses through his teeth. Thus far, for one reason or another, he’s managed to avoid any visits from Wells, although he’s sure his luck won’t last much longer. Before that happens, he needs to make himself indispensable. “Then don’t let me out. I only need a tablet. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be connected to the greater STAR Labs system—just load it with any information you gathered from that thing.” 

Cisco frowns. “What exactly do you think we were able to do, hook it up and scan it? We don’t have that much data.”

While Hartley occasionally has to concede his brilliance, there are times when Cisco can be phenomenally dense. “I doubt there’s another location in Central City as packed with sensors as STAR Labs. You may not have much data, but I’m sure you have enough. Give it to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Cisco considers, chews his lip, and sighs a lot. Hartley is about to ask him to take his sighing elsewhere when he finally relents. “All right, but I’m not leaving you unsupervised. You’ll get work time whenever one of us can spare the time to sit with you.”

That is indisputably the best arrangement Hartley will get. He nods once, curtly, to show Cisco he accepts. As Cisco reaches for the button to send his cell back to where it belongs, Hartley finds the nerve to make a final request. “Cisco? Whoever you send to supervise me, please…don’t let it be Dr. Wells.” 

“As if we would! You want him dead,” Cisco scoffs. When Hartley doesn’t reply, Cisco studies him more intently. Whatever he sees makes his brow furrow and his lips turn down. “You used to adore him. What changed?” 

Hartley curls in on himself. “I already told you,” he snaps. “He didn’t listen to me, and because of that, I have to live with constant screaming in my ears. You’ll forgive me if I don’t want to work with him again.”  
Cisco hesitates as though he senses there’s more to Hartley’s hatred than just the particle accelerator. There is, but Hartley refuses to utter another word. He doesn’t want Cisco’s pity or his condemnation. “Okay, whatever.”

“See you soon, Cisco,” Hartley calls as the door closes. He remains pressed against the glass until his cell has slid back into its position against the wall of the accelerator. Once the cell stops moving, he paces the length and breadth of it. This is the second time Harrison Wells has imprisoned him. At least this time, he’s able to move. He fully intends to make the most of it while he can.

***

Hartley labors over the data for weeks. Some of it is only partially complete; what’s there in full is less useful than he’d hoped. Still, it’s enough. He’s able to extrapolate a range wherein the Time Wraith’s frequency probably falls.

“More than that, I can’t determine.” He presents his findings to Caitlin and Cisco, who have both taken turns supervising him while he works. The little forensic analyst, Barry, isn’t with them, although he too has sat with Hartley while he worked. (Hartley has a hypothesis about why he isn’t present. He hasn’t had time to test it yet, but that day will come.) “Unless you happen to have a Time Wraith I can test on?”

“Uh…no.” Caitlin purses her lips the way she does when she thinks she’s delivering bad news. Hartley hadn’t expected them to have a spare Time Wraith lying about, so he’s not terribly disappointed. 

“Then my best advice would be to make a weapon capable of reaching any frequency in this range.” He smirks. “You already have one, of course, but I doubt you know how to use it.”

“And that’s the end of this conversation.” Cisco lunges for the button to banish him back to the depths of the particle accelerator. “I’m not giving you your gauntlets back.” 

“I haven’t proven myself worthy yet?” Hartley lays a hand over his heart. “You wound me, Cisco.” 

“Useful, yes. Worthy, no.” Cisco brandishes the tablet at him. “This was just one problem. A big one, yeah, but not enough to earn our trust.”

“Especially not when setting you free would allow you to go after Dr. Wells again.” Caitlin clasps her hands in front of her. Hartley studies her. There’s one more thing he could offer, something so dear that Caitlin, at least, would be motivated to release him. He could wait, of course, and prolong their suspense, but every minute he’s trapped in this box is another minute he’s at Wells’ mercy. 

“In that case, it’s a good thing I might have one more use.” 

Cisco reaches for the button. His eyes stay locked on Hartley—despite himself, he’s curious. Hartley smiles. He’s as good as free; he just needs to plan his next few moves carefully. “What’s that? Like you said, sound is kinda your thing, and we don’t have anything else we need a sonic weapon for…”

“Oh, it’s not sound-related.” He stumbled across this interesting tidbit long before he settled on sound as his weapon of choice. After completing his cochlear implants but well before he craved Wells’ demise, he wanted to atone for having any involvement with the particle accelerator. He spent weeks combing through video records of the blast, and in the process, he made a remarkable discovery. 

“Spit it out, Hartley,” Caitlin chides.

Hartley meets her eyes and speaks slowly and distinctly. “I know what happened to Ronnie Raymond.”

This has the intended effect. Caitlin stalks up to the glass and presses her palm flat against it. It’s the most anger he’s ever seen her display, and it’s no less chilling for her reserve: the way her eyes burn almost makes him regret how slowly he intends to play this reveal. “Tell me!” she says, her tone somewhere between a demand and a plea. “Hartley, tell me _now.”_

“Can’t.” He leans against the back wall of the cell. “I have to show you.” That much is true. It’s hard to explain what the video shows—how an image of Ronnie, rather than Ronnie himself, fused with Professor Stein. The video doesn’t follow through to the consequences of that merge, but Hartley would bet whatever paltry sum he still has that it left Stein and Ronnie sharing a body. Whether that will be permanent, he can only theorize. 

“This is your way of getting us to let you out?” Caitlin bangs her hand against the glass. “This is cruel, Hartley, even for you.”

“Cruel?” Hartley pushes away from the wall. “I’m not trying to be cruel. I mean it—you would never believe me if I tried to explain to you what I saw. If you don’t see it for yourselves, you won’t understand. Either of you.” 

“I think we’ll understand better than you give us credit for,” Caitlin snaps. 

Cisco lays a hand on her shoulder and sighs, “Where would we have to take you?”

Hartley shrugs. “Anywhere with access to CCTV records of STAR Labs on the night of the explosion. I went to the CCPD, but I assume you kept a copy of those records here at STAR Labs, didn’t you?” 

Caitlin and Cisco exchange a look that he doesn’t like even a bit. “No, we don’t.” Cisco wrings his hands. “The police took them, and we didn't save backups. I mean, we should have, but they're gone.”

“Then we’ll need to go elsewhere.” This is undoubtedly for the best. Hartley would like to avoid Wells while showing these two what happened to Ronnie and Professor Stein, a feat that would be next to impossible if they stayed in the labs. “The CCPD served me well last time. Perhaps Barry could get us in.”

This is how he comes to be in the company of Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco, striding confidently through CCPD. Barry leads them to his lab, a wooden hovel that makes Hartley scoff, “How do you get any work done with this ancient equipment?” 

“Why do you think I jumped at a chance to work at STAR Labs?” Barry leads them to a computer that looks like the most modern thing in the room. He keys them in and stands back. “Okay, Hartley. This had better be worth our time.” 

Hartley shoots him a sideways glance. That sounds almost like a threat. Given how breakable Barry looks, it’s adorable. (Save one possibility. This might be the perfect opportunity for Hartley to test his hypothesis, supposing he can think up a way to do it that won’t jeopardize his freedom.) 

A few swift keystrokes pull up the right CCTV footage. Hartley steps aside. “All right. Play it forward.”

The three of them have a short, silent debate that ends with Caitlin’s pressing the button. The footage plays forward until Hartley says, “Pause it here, and zoom in on Professor Stein.” 

This time, Barry is the one to follow his instructions. 

“Now play it forward frame by frame.” 

Barry steps aside and allows Caitlin to run the footage forward. She stops it on the very still-frame he’d hoped they would notice. The hand that had been on the computer mouse flies to her mouth. “Ronnie.”

Cisco and Barry stoop closer to the screen. Hartley points out the golden shadow that closely resembles Ronnie Raymond. He also indicates Professor Stein, whose eyes shine white. “Have you seen this before?”

“Yes,” Barry murmurs. He lays a hand on Caitlin’s shoulder and whispers, “Like Ronnie.”

Hartley isn’t quite sure what that means, although he infers that they’ve recently encountered Ronnie alive or on CCTV. “If you continue to play the footage forward, the golden image of Ronnie fuses with Professor Stein.”

“You think that’s why Ronnie has been acting strangely?” Barry glances up from the screen. Hartley raises his eyebrows. Of the three of them, he hadn’t expected Barry to come to that conclusion first. 

“It’s possible.” Hartley taps the screen. “You may not have noticed—Professor Stein was carrying a briefcase marked FIRESTORM.”

“His project about transmutation.” Caitlin rewinds and replays the footage. She pauses it again on the same still. “You think he and Ronnie fused on…on a molecular level?”

Hartley shrugs. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s safe to say they’re connected somehow. Whether it can be undone…I can only postulate.” 

“Well, then, postulate!” Cisco throws his hands in the air. “This is our first lead on a way to help Ronnie. If you think you can help…”

“And I do,” Hartley interjects. He can’t let them see that he’s as clueless about how to proceed as they are. If they realize, they might throw him back in a cell and forget about him. 

“Then by all means, do it!” 

Hartley taps his fingers lightly on the desk. “This isn’t the kind of science I can do from my cell. If you want my help, I’ll need access to a lab. Conditional, I know, upon supervision—as long as it isn’t Wells supervising.” 

“And you’ll return to your cell when you’re done working or when we need you to?” Barry asks. Sweet, trusting boy—he shouldn’t be willing to take Hartley’s word for it. (Hartley has no intention of hurting him, but he doesn’t know that.) 

“If that’s the best deal you can offer me, then yes.” Hartley sticks out a hand. “Partners?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Cisco growls. “We’re working with you because we need you, not because we like you.”

Hartley smiles. He doesn’t need to be liked; he needs to be essential. He’s seen what happens if he isn’t. “Just like old times, eh, Cisco?”

“Ay Dios,” Cisco sighs under his breath. It isn’t a demand for him to be thrown back into his cell, so for now, Hartley will take it.


End file.
